Evolution Earth: Cataclysm Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Objective of Game
• Game Play
• Actions
  • Buying a Card (Action A)
  • Tabling a Territory Card (Action B)
  • Tabling a Species Card (Action C)
  • Summary
  • Player's World Examples
• Card Anatomy
• Cataclysm (Action D)
  • Example of a Cataclysmic Attack
• Winning
  • Victory Point Levels
• Losing by Mass Extinction
• Blue Pearl

Setup

1. Lay out the CARD SUPPLY consisting of 20 piles as follows:

   • 1a. 14 cataclysm card piles, each pile contains 3 identical cataclysm cards.
   • 1b. 5 Species Cards piles: FISHES, INSECTS, REPTILES, BIRDS, MAMMALS. Each pile has 5 cards in a 2-player game or 7 cards in a 3-player game or 10 cards in a 4-player game.
   • 1c. One POPULATION/RESOURCE (or POP for short) Cards pile. It has 20 cards in a 2-player game or 30 cards in a 3-player game or 40 cards in a 4-player game.

2. Give each player a starter deck consisting of 5 CRITTERS cards, 5 POP cards, one each of the 7 different CONTINENT cards. Note: POP cards are taken from the leftover cards and NOT from the CARD SUPPLY.

   Each player shuffles his/her starter cards and collects them into a deck in front of himself/herself face down. Deck is never revealed after that, so you can't examine your deck during a play.

3. Have all the players put a SHUFFLE card face up under his/her deck to show when you have to shuffle your deck.

4. Have all the players place next to the CARD SUPPLY the OCEAN cards in the same column. Leave some room between OCEANS for the upcoming SPECIES cards. Each player has his/her own OCEAN card. Each OCEAN is the beginning TERRITORY where players begin to build their Proto-Earth World. Next to each OCEAN cards there are 7 empty areas for the CONTINENTS to appear.

After the SET UP the game is ready to begin.

Objective of Game

Winner is a player who first gets 50 Victory Points by tabling his/her species cards into his/her world row. (See Winning p. 10)

Game Play

1. Decide who begins to play. The next player to play is sitting left of him/her and play goes clockwise.

2. On your turn you draw 5 cards from top of your deck into your hand cards. Don't show them to your opponents. If your deck has less than 5 cards then take what you can. SHUFFLE card is never picked up. It only shows when you have to shuffle. If it is on top of the deck: Shuffle your deck and place the SHUFFLE card under your deck face up. If you have to shuffle in the middle of a card drawing then continue drawing up to five cards after you have shuffled. During a play you may check where in the deck your shuffle card is.

3. If you have POP cards in your hand you can table as many of them as you want into your population supply. (Usually it is good to table all of them from your hand). Population Supply has the cards in a row formation next to your deck.

   Note: POP cards you have tabled remain in your Population Supply until needed. You need POP also for buying cards - and your species needs them for surviving cataclysms (explained in p. 8-9).

4. After tabling any number of your POP cards you can do any one (and only one) of the four actions:

   • A. Buy one card from CARD SUPPLY (species or cataclysm).
   • B. Table one TERRITORY card from your hand into an empty slot.
   • C. Table one SPECIES card on top of a TERRITORY card from your hand.
   • D. Play one cataclysm card from your hand and pay it's cost from your tabled POP cards.

   On your turn you have to do at least one action or you lose the game (see Mass Extinction p. 10). Picking cards from your deck into your hand cards is not counted as an action. Tabling any number of POP from your hand cards into your population supply is however counted as an action.

5. You finish your turn by placing the rest of your hand cards (if any) under your deck face down.

Actions

Buying a Card (Action A)

1. Choose a card from a CARD SUPPLY and pay it's cost with your POP cards in your population supply by placing them under your deck face down with the card you bought. (e.g. You buy FISHES card: Put 3 of your POPs from your population supply AND the FISHES card under your deck face down.)

Tabling a Territory Card (Action B)

Territory cards are your Continent and Ocean cards.

1. Table one CONTINENT card to an empty slot in your cards row.
2. You can never have in your world more than one OCEAN and one of each CONTINENT. (e.g. You can't have in your world two AFRICAS).
3. Same continents (between different players) are at the same column (top-down row) like Ocean cards at the beginning.

Tabling a Species Card (Action C)

1. Place one SPECIES card from your hand on top of a TERRITORY card that is already face up in your world.
2. You can table a SPECIES card by SPREADING or by EVOLUTION or by combination of both.
3. SPREADING means an existing Species conquers a new territory. If you have already (at least) one card of a given species in your world, you can table another card of the same species onto an empty territory card. (example: you already have one or more FISHES in your world: You are allowed to table another FISHES card)
   • 3.a. CRITTERS can be tabled through SPREADING, even if you don't have CRITTERS yet. CRITTERS must be placed on top of an empty TERRITORY card.
4. EVOLUTION means that a new species evolves from an existing species. The existing species is called the ANCESTOR.
   • 4a. Table a SPECIES card if you have it's direct ANCESTOR already in your world. See the Evolution Tree below. If you have CRITTERS then INSECTS and FISHES may evolve. If you have FISHES then REPTILES may evolve. If you have REPTILES then BIRDS and MAMMALS may evolve. INSECTS, BIRDS or MAMMALS don't evolve into new species cards.

Evolution Tree (arrow shows the line of evolution from ancestor into more evolved species):

• CRITTERS → INSECTS and FISHES
• FISHES → REPTILES
• REPTILES → BIRDS and MAMMALS
  • 4b. Place the new SPECIES card on an empty TERRITORY card in your world, or replace the ANCESTOR card with a new evolved SPECIES card. (Diagrams: Critters SPREAD and EVOLVE into FISHES; or Critters EVOLVE into FISHES, discarding the replaced species into a Fossils pile.)
  • 4c. If you replace the ANCESTOR, then put the ANCESTOR into a FOSSILS pile, i.e. a common junk pile for discarded cards next to a game world.

5. After you tabled a SPECIES card, take a number of POP cards equal to the SPECIES card's Victory Point value from the CARD SUPPLY and put them face down under your deck. If the CARD SUPPLY doesn't contain enough POP cards, take as many as available.
6. All species can live in all territories. FISHES on a CONTINENT live in coastal areas or inland waters and some even try to adapt into a dry land. MAMMALS on the OCEAN are sea mammals. Sometimes INSECTS even adapt them selves into an Ocean.

Summary

1. SPREADING: Table from your hand a same kind of a SPECIES card that already exists in your world into an empty TERRITORY card.
2. EVOLVING (EVOLUTION): Table from your hand a SPECIES card that is evolved compared to any of the ancestor in your world either by a) replacing the ancestor card or b) tabling the evolved SPECIES card into an empty TERRITORY card.
3. CRITTERS can spread into an empty TERRITORY card regardless of ancestors present or not.
4. Note that SPECIES cards don't move from one TERRITORY card into another.

Player's World Examples

The printed page shows sample worlds (empty TERRITORY slots and tabled cards) beside the SPECIES cards each could table. Captions printed on the page:

• Possible species to table: CRITTERS; then CRITTERS, FISHES, INSECTS; then CRITTERS, FISHES, INSECTS, REPTILES; then CRITTERS, FISHES, REPTILES; then REPTILES, BIRDS, MAMMALS.
• One example is captioned "No TERRITORIES to SPREAD to. Stuck with INSECTS and BIRDS."

Card Anatomy

• Species card: COST to buy (top-left number); DEFENCE VALUE (bottom-left shield); VICTORY POINT VALUE (large number on the card face).
• Cataclysm card: COST to buy/play (top-left number); TARGET TYPE (an OCEAN or CONTINENT symbol shown on the card); ATTACK VALUE (bottom-right shield).
• Territory card (Continent): DEFENCE VALUE (bottom-left shield).

Cataclysm (Action D)

1. Play a cataclysm card from your hand cards in front of you, so that players can see it and announce its target CONTINENT or OCEAN (can't be both at the same time). A cataclysm card may only target a TERRITORY type for which it has the matching target symbol. You can't play a cataclysm into a TERRITORY where none of your opponent's species are (empty continent or an empty ocean can't be hit.)
2. All the opponent's that have species on that TERRITORY card are under cataclysmic attack. (e.g Climate Chance is played into an Eurasia. All opponents having species on their world in Eurasia are under attack).
3. Discard that cataclysm card (after it's effect) into a FOSSILS pile and pay it's cost by putting as many of your POP cards from your population supply under your deck face down. If you gain species (and possibly TERRITORY cards), put them with POP cards under your deck.
4. Discarded cataclysm cards that are in the FOSSILS pile can't be used again, so for example ICE AGE can't be played more than 3 times in a single game.
5. Optional (recommended): You can use discarded cards of the fossils pile as a reminder to mark a lost continent into it's empty slot face down. This way you can more easily keep track for TERRITORIES that have been lost either by you or other players.

Each player that is hit by a cataclysm:

1. The cataclysm hits that player's POP supply first. Each player that is hit by a cataclysm must discard a number of POP cards from the his/her population supply equal to the ATTACK VALUE of the cataclysm card (e.g. ice age would reduce 14 POP cards).
2. The discarded POP cards go back to the POP pile in the CARD SUPPLY instantly.
3. If player has enough POP cards (equal or more than cataclysmic attack value) in his/her population supply, there is no further damage into his/her species card.
4. If a player has NOT enough POP cards in his population supply, he/she discards all available POP cards.
5. Every discarded POP card reduces the attack value of the cataclysm by 1 for that player. The remaining attack value hit's the species card. If the remaining attack value after POP is reduced is equal than the defense value of the species, then that species card is removed from the world and given to an attacking player.
6. If the remaining attack value after POP is reduced is larger than defense value of species card then that TERRITORY card is also given to an attacking player.
7. All the cards that are given to an attacking player, he/she puts under his/her deck face down.

Example of a Cataclysmic Attack

Player D plays from his hand cards a DESERTIFICATION card. It can only be played on a Continent. He chooses INDIA to it's target. He has enough POP to pay it. It costs 6 POP to play it and he has 7 POP.

DESERTIFICATION card's attack value is 8. Every opponent having species in INDIA is hit by a cataclysm: DESERTIFICATION.

• Player A pays 3 POP cards into a POP pile in CARD SUPPLY. The remaining attack value (8-3) is 5. BIRD'S DEFENCE VALUE is 5. Player A loses his BIRD card too. He gives it to a player D. Since the attack value did not exceed species' DEFENCE VALUE player A does not lose his INDIA card.
• Player B pays 4 POP cards into a POP pile in CARD SUPPLY. The remaining attack value (8-4) is 4. REPTILE'S DEFENCE VALUE is 3. The remaining attack value 1 attacks INDIA continent card too. Player B loses both his REPTILE card and INDIA card to player D.
• Player C pays 6 POP cards into a POP pile in CARD SUPPLY. The remaining attack value (8-6) is lower than REPTILE'S DEFENCE VALUE 3. Player C's reptiles card survives the attack. The POP pile in CARD SUPPLY now has 22 POP cards.

Player D collected a BIRDS card, REPTILES card and INDIA card. He puts them under his deck face down and also 6 POP cards that he paid the cataclysmic attack with.

Winning

1. Winner is a player who first reaches 50 or more Victory Points by having tabled species on his/her world. Game ends immediately when any player reaches the Victory Point level.
2. Players may agree to change the Victory Point level before the game begins. Raising the level makes a game more challenging.

Victory Point Levels

• Easy: 30 Victory Points to win. Recommended for children and very beginners.
• Casual Play: 40 Victory Points to win. Recommended for easier play.
• Strategic Play: 50 Victory Points to win. Recommended for more aggressive, deeper and strategic play. Enhances the end game dramatically.

Losing by Mass Extinction

1. Player loses immediately and his/her world is removed from the game, if he/she can not (or will not) commit any actions: A, B, C, D or at least table any POP cards into his/her Population Supply.

How to prevent losing this way:

• a) you should not lose all your POP cards
• b) you should be able to table a species card
• c) Zero POP cards in your Population Supply is dangerous in case a Dead Fossil's Hand appears.

Dead Fossil's Hand means that your hand cards are useless (e.g. Cataclysmic cards that are too expensive to play, species cards you can not table, not any POP cards to table, Territory cards you already have).

Blue Pearl

BLUE PEARL is an advanced play mode for most strategic and tactical players as it eliminates randomness from the game. BLUE PEARL is played exactly the same way as Evolution Earth: Cataclysm with these exceptions:

1. Do not use SHUFFLE cards.
2. All players put cards in the same order in their starter deck as follows: one player shuffles (or decides the order of) 5 CRITTERS, 5 POPs and 7 CONTINENTs into his/her deck. Deck is then revealed face up and all players create for oneself a similar kind of a deck with the same order of cards. Decks are turned face down and game begins normally.
3. During your turn, collect all cards that should be placed under your deck into a separate pile. At the end of your turn, place those cards face down under your deck in the order of your choosing.